From WND News: Russia is restoring its status as a world military power due to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s actions and his defense spending objectives for the next six years. Putin wants to ‘reindustrialize Russia’ by rebuilding the defense industry while creating millions of new ‘high-tech jobs’ during his term in office as an effort to transform its military into an ‘iron fist’ against the Western powers. Likewise, Deputy Prime Minister for Armaments Dmitry Rogozin, who was Russia’s chief representative to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) headquarters in Brussels, envisions the same effort to make Russia a world major industrial superpower once again. Rogozin believes the West only recognizes ‘raw military power,’ adding that ‘smart power’ and ‘soft power’ are ‘only nice words.

From HAARETZ: The recent incursion by an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) into Israeli airspace exposed the weakness of Israeli air defense capabilities, according to Iranian military officials. An Israeli warplane shot down a drone recently when the UAV crossed into southern Israel, according to IDF officials. While it remained unclear where the aircraft originated from, Hezbollah was believed to be the main suspect. Jamaluddin Aberoumand, deputy coordinator for Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said the incident indicated that Israel's Iron Dome anti-missile defense system ‘does not work and lacks the necessary capacity.

From HAARETZ: The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) struck sites in the Gaza Strip recently in response to continued rocket and mortar fire by Islamic Jihad and Hamas toward southern Israel early this morning. According to a statement released recently, the IDF spokesperson said the IDF hit terror cells and targets occupied by the organization Hamas in the Gaza Strip, in response to the rockets fired this morning toward the Israeli state. The target located in a mosque and it was part of the Hamas organization employed for terrorism operations. The Hamas’ military wing, along with Islamic Jihad’s the armed wing, declared their responsibility for firing mortar shells and rockets toward the western Negev area this morning. They said they were responding to the IDF targeting two militants in the Gaza Strip recently, where the IDF killed one of them, and injured 11 civilian bystanders. Monday morning's rockets and mortars landed in open fields in the Eshkol Regional Council. While shrapnel from the shells caused damage to some residential buildings, no injuries were reported.

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